In April, we released 2 important new spreadsheet management server-based applications to complement the desktop spreadsheet management features we introduced with the release of Office 2013. Now available are Audit and Control Management Server (ACM), and Discovery and Risk Assessment, which are both designed to help you manage the use of spreadsheets and Access databases.  Read on to learn more.

Yesterday we announced some exciting news about Web Excel (and all of the Office Web Apps) over on the Office 365 Blog. Specifically, we announced that we’ll be improving the Web Apps to be a comprehensive productivity experience (not just a companion to the desktop applications) on more browsers and devices over the next year and beyond. Head on over to the Office 365 blog to check it out!

Ever had to sum data based on multiple criteria situated in different Microsoft Excel worksheets? In this tutorial, Excel MVP Liam Bastick provides a quick tour of INDIRECT references and Table functionality while combining qualities of the SUMPRODUCT function with the SUMIFS function, providing a solution to the mother-of-all Multiple Criteria problems.

One of the improvements we made for Office 2013 to the way users work with Charts in Word and PowerPoint is to make the data grid easier to use and less intrusive.  Now the data grid is displayed in a streamlined small input window that floats above the chart. Read on to find out more about these improvements.

Guest blogger Emily Warn is a writer and confirmed Excel geek. In this post, she demonstrates how to use the new Quick Analysis feature in Excel 2013 to create a spreadsheet with book sales numbers that can be sorted by name and number in order to make data tell a story by presenting it visually.

The Microsoft account team in Dallas, TX wanted to create a localized demonstration that would be recognizable to customers in the area. Taking advantage of publicly available residential data and awareness of the extreme summer temperatures in and around Dallas, the team decided to present simulated household energy consumption data using Excel 2013, Power View and project code name "GeoFlow" Preview for Excel, believing the presentation would peak customers' interests. Read on to see how they did it, plus learn how to create your own demo and more.

Today we are announcing the availability of the project codename "GeoFlow" Preview for Excel 2013, a result of collaborations between several teams within Microsoft. GeoFlow lets you plot geographic and temporal data visually, analyze that data in 3D, and create interactive "tours" to share with others.

Read on to learn how GeoFlow adds to the existing self-service Business Intelligence capabilities in Excel 2013, such as Microsoft Data Explorer Preview and Power View, to help discover and visualize large amounts of data, from Twitter traffic to sales performance to population data in cities around the world.

Date functions in Excel make it is possible to perform date calculations, like addition or subtraction, resulting in automated or semi-automated worksheets. When you mix date functions with conditional formatting, you can create spreadsheets that display date alerts automatically when a deadline is near or differentiate between types of days, like weekends and weekdays.

In this tutorial, Excel MVP Frédéric Le Guen shows how to put this functionality to work, with some examples in the Excel Web App so you can experiment with the results.

The new Excel makes creating and customizing charts simpler and more intuitive. One part of the fluid new experience is the Formatting Task pane, which replaces the Format dialog box. The new Formatting Task pane is the single source for formatting--all of the different styling options are consolidated in one place. With this single task pane, you can modify not only charts, but also shapes and text in Excel.

Have you ever wanted to incorporate data from online resources into your Excel spreadsheets, such as stock quotes, weather, Bing Search results or even Twitter feeds? With new Webservice functions, now you can pull data from the internet into Excel--and the best part is the information updates automatically in your spreadsheet! Read on to find out how to put this functionality to work for you.